Wednesday, September 12, 2018

IS ERIC TRUMP AN ANTI-SEMITE -- OR IS HE LIVING IN A TIME WARP?

Eric Trump is lashing out at veteran Watergate journalist Bob Woodward, and his remarks are drawing accusations of anti-Semitism....

Co-host Steve Doocy ... noted that the anonymous New York Times op-ed, combined with Bob Woodward’s book, “Fear,” has thrown the administration into “chaos.”

Eric Trump pushed back.

“Don’t you think people look through the fact, you can write some sensational, nonsense book, CNN will definitely have you on there because they love to trash the president. It’ll mean you sell three extra books, you make three extra shekels, at the behest of the American people, at the behest of our country, that’s doing a phenomenal job by every quantifiable metric. Is that really where we are?”

ERIC TRUMP attacks Democrats: "Anti-law enforcement, high taxes, and elimination of plastic straws is not a message that will win in November."

White nationalist bigots like to invoke "shekels" -- but Woodward isn't Jewish, and even Eric Trump might be sufficiently well informed to know that. Also, "a few shekels" is a long-established phrase in English meaning "a certain amount of money." Many people have used the expression who aren't flagrantly anti-Semitic.

But does any person under the age of 50 use this expression on a regular basis? Eric Trump is 34. For him, this should be a dad expression -- or maybe even a granddad expression. (Based on a search of book files, Google's Ngram says the use of the expression "a few shekels" peaked in 1936, when Eric's grandpa Fred Trump was a little younger than Eric is now.)

The Trumps always seem to be living in a time warp. With his overdone steaks and aversion to several decades' worth of cooking innovation, not to mention his decor preferences, Donald Trump seems to be a guy whose clock stopped around the time the Rat Pack were still playing the Sands. Eric and Donald Jr. still seem to be getting tonsorial advice from American Psycho's Patrick Bateman. So maybe Eric -- who's technically a Millennial -- would really talk like his grandpa.